


Orpheus and Eurydice

by orphan_account



Series: John's Muse, Sherlock's Angel [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Crack, F/M, M/M, Magic Realism, Muse!Sherlock, Reaper!Mary, Romance, angel!John, references to Greek mythology
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-27
Updated: 2012-07-27
Packaged: 2017-11-10 21:19:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/470797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John is about to marry his Reaper. Don't look back, don't look back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Don't Look Back

**Author's Note:**

> based on [this](http://acelockstark.tumblr.com/post/28150763712/skybread-221tea-you-too-no-but) gifset. Don't worry, the little addition at the end is mine, so I'm not stealing anything from anybody. Well, I am borrowing Sir Arthur's toys, but they're in the public domain by now, so I doubt he minds. Don't think Mr's Moffat and Gatiss mind either, but I haven't exactly asked.

'She wants you to come. Mary, I mean,' he tried, knowing that wouldn't work.

Sherlock still had his back to him.

'I do too.' Still nothing.

'You are the best man, after all.' Some sense of pride, maybe. He knew this would be hard on Sherlock, but he thought maybe...

Sherlock always did what he wanted, at least when it really mattered. So why was this different?

'Sherlock, please say something.' Almost imperceptible tilt of the head, forward.

'Have a nice life, John.' There was no malice in those words. He'd say they lacked of all emotion, but the simple fact that they seemed to - John knew better. He knew Sherlock was upset and he knew he would never say anything about it.

But there was nothing to be done about it. Sherlock left. Sherlock lied. And now John was marrying Mary. His Reaper.

He'd laugh if there was anything funny about it. One day she'd come to take his soul and instead she'd taken - What? What had she taken? Not his Heart, because he could still feel that beating. Not his Soul, because he was still alive. He'd escaped that particular pitfall.

John had tried to kill himself and Mary had saved him. In return she wanted the one thing that she, as a Reaper, could never have.

Love.

It was sapping him slowly, he knew. Being in Baker street made his stomach churn, Mary's possession coiling like smoke around his Soul, choking him.

'...You too.'

A wet hug from Mrs Hudson. She didn't want me to leave. _He'll be so broken_ , she didn't say. _You'll be so broken too, like you were before. Like you still are._ John heard it. She didn't say it.

'I am still broken.' She nodded. She didn't need an explanation. She knows. She always did. Always has. Always will.

__John left and he tried not to look back._ _

__It was like the story of Eurydice; as long as he didn’t look back, John would be happy. As long as he didn’t look back, he could keep his happiness. He could walk out of the darkness, out of the land of the dead and into the light, the land of the living._ _

__But Sherlock was never Eurydice, and neither, if John was being honest with himself, was Mary. Sherlock had traveled to the land of the dead, and if everything he’d said was true, he did it for John. He dived in and didn’t look back because he knew what would happen if he did, that he’d lose John forever to Death by Sniper._ _

__London since Sherlock left had been colder, darker. Living with Mary was like being in a cave. She put up candles and still, it wasn’t light. He was about to be tied down to her by contract, he was -_ _

__‘Oh,’ John said, stopping in his tracks._ _

__Then louder, again, ‘OH!’_ _

__He ran, seventeen steps, closer to the light. Sherlock didn’t turn. If he turned around then he’d have to face everything, the emotions, losing John. If he didn’t turn around he never saw, could pretend it wasn’t happening._ _

__‘Oh!’ John tripped, heels of his palms slamming hard into the wood of the landing. There was a pause in the violin. The door cracked and John righted himself._ _

__‘I’m Eurydice,’ no explanation. ‘I’m Eurydice.’_ _

__Sherlock tilted his head, smiling sadly. ‘You’re meant to be home, with her.’_ _

__John shook his head. ‘I’m meant to be chasing the light. With you.’ He grabbed Sherlock’s hand._ _

__‘John, I…’ nothing to say._ _

__‘Don’t look back.’ Sherlock looked to him. ‘Don’t look back.’_ _

__Sherlock smiled, started laughing, squeezed John’s hand again. ‘So the wedding is off, then?’_ _

__‘I won’t even tell Mary,’ John blurted. ‘She’ll know. Somehow. She always has, she always does. Always will. Don’t look back.’_ _

__John’s relieved giggles bubbled up and joined Sherlock’s._ _

__‘Don’t look back.’ Sherlock walked to the window and pivoted, facing the window._ _

__‘Don’t look back.’ John sat in his arm chair, closing his eyes softly, stretching his legs. He opens his eyes back up. Sherlock is playing from that opera._ _

__‘Don’t look back.’ So he does understand._ _

__‘Don’t look back.’_ _

__John never looks back.__


	2. Please

There is a sad sound of a violin from in front of where John is sitting. Laying. An odd combination of the two. He hears the music flutter in shyness. Johns eyes pry open and Sherlock is still there, playing the violin and looking at John.

Not looking back.

'I didn't want to wake you,' the violin and bow lowered gracefully with his arms, so like a Muse. His Muse. John's Muse. Gorgeous and etheral, unreal, the music and Sherlock. John's Muse. 'But that position is not condusive to sleeping, you will harm your leg.' John nods but he doesn't move.

She's coming. John knows she can't hurt him, won't hurt him. But he closes his eyes. 'Don't look back.'

He can feel her presence. The smoke on his Soul was leaving. It comes back now and it prickles, it stings. Sherlock's presence is there too. Gossamer? Lace? Silk? He can't tell what it is, but it isn't smoke. It isn't holding, isn't smothering. It's standing off to the side. Watching. Observing. Deducing.

'Miss Morstan, I presume.'

Mary is blonde, is plain and dull. She has to be. She's a Reaper. She's not supposed to be noticed, to make herself noticable. She doesn't look like Death, but she does have a long face, ash coloured, hair in her face and bony. John imagines she looks even more skeleton-like now than she did previously. He never noticed how terrifying she was, how much agony her very existence causes.

'You can't take John. You do not have that power, to do that. John may stay here as he wishes, and I may cast you out of my home.' John can feel Sherlock picking up the violin, putting it on his shoulder, threatening.

 _I cannot protect you,_ he says, doesn't say. _I cannot save you from everything. I do not have the power. I want. I will. I would. I can't._

'You would have to be an Angel to take him away from me, and you are no Angel.'

Mary does not say much, does not plan to stay. She does not want or do or say any awkward goodbyes. It is merely her repsonse, to this last one. 'John is.' She is gone as she says it.

Sherlock says nothing at first as John breathes deeply. He feels Mary presence leaving. He stretches his leg. Sherlock kneels between them and kisses John's knees.

The violin is at his shoulder again. 'Please.'

 _You are mine, don't leave._ 'Please.'

 _I love you. You are my Angel, my Guardian Angel. Don't leave._ 'Please.'

 _I need you, I want you, you are everything._ 'Please.'

_I don't care if you love me too -_

'I do.'

_Always promise to love me -_

'I do.'

 _Lay with me tonight._ 'Please.'


	3. D'enouement

Touching, feeling, sound. John isn't sure how Sherlock plays the violin when laying on his back. He doesn't, frankly, care. It serves as Sherlock's gasps, whines, moans. It twirls and accompanies them, encloses them together. Duet, folie a deux, d'enouement. Not in any way related, but all wonderful words. Duet, what they were together. Folie a deux, the madness of love which both they share. D'enouement...climax.

Sherlock arches as the song is finished, breathy. He hasn't come yet. He won't until John lets him. Sherlock says it's a terrible abuse of his power as an Angel. _I like it_ , he says, doesn't say.

'Mary can't enter anymore?'

'Neither can Moriarty, Moran, the men I saved you from.' Eyes flutter, his hips shifting down. Closer, more touching, more feeling. Sherlock can barely feel him. John's fingers in him, on his muscles are just barely there and he feels no connect. He needs to hear John's voice, feel his heartbeat.

 _I love you_ , he has said before and says now instead, 'You belong to me.'

The fingers slide out, mock frowning. ' _You_ belong to _me_.' _We belong to each other_ , they don't need to say.

'Everything about you.'

'Everything about me?' Fingers separating, spreading Sherlock apart. John licks his calves, his thighs, kisses his knees and his hips and his pelvis. Tongues his belly button until Sherlock giggles. 'What about me?'

'Your smile, your laugh, your ridiculous notions and your blog, your theories, kindness, eyes, love, love, love.'

A pause in their pressing, pulling Sherlock apart. A stutter. _Why are you stopping?_

'Won't I bore you?' A pulse, a twitch. Not a guilt, not a fear. Something he's never thought of. 'I'm ordinary, dull. Everything you want to know you already do.'

'My Angel, my love, my light,' whispered and melodic, Sherlock kisses across his face as if writing notes across sheet music. 'The one for whom I went to Hell and back. My life,' a hand on John's chest, an insistent pressure. 'My love,' a pause. He's waiting to be kicked off, pushed away, It breaks John's heart to see his charge so distressed, so unsure. 'If you will have it.' Three fingers insistent on his prostate. Get the message, get the message.

John feels nonexistent wings fluttering. His kind of Angels do not have wings or halos or even a uniform, robes or harps. He is a protector, and he kisses Sherlock's eyelids he is convinced he has hardly done his job.

A job he wasn't assigned.

A job he willingly chose.

Exit the three fingers, follow John's cock. It's not a good word, it's sounds so violent. Mary asked him once if they were going to fuck, and the word alone sent shivers down his spine.

Fuck. F-U-C-K. Forced Unlawful Carnal Knowledge; rape. He has no intention of doing this to anyone, and least of all to Sherlock. Sex and copulation are too clinical, getting it on and banging too immature. Making love sounds so...terrifyingly cheesy. It's also the closest he has.

Sherlock's eyes are closed now as John rests his forehead on Sherlock's and thrusts, Sherlock's legs gripping him closer, mouth barely whispering over his own and his fingers clawing at his back. John arches slowly. Clawing, a sign of an ask for help, restraint. Petting follows.

No, Sherlock wants him closer. He lowers his body further, laying across Sherlock as he pulls out and pushes in.

When Mycroft (so hard to believe he's an Angel, too well dressed, too many sharp lines and hard glares) talked to him about the best way of keeping Sherlock safe, he mentioned his. He called it _the Communion of Sousl_ , and John laughed. He saw no parallels, and now that these things are really happening he's not sure he cares to draw the religious imagery. He's never really cared what the Christians or the Muslims or the Jews or anybody else thought about his relationship to Sherlock. It was always the most important thing, God be damned, should he even exist.

A permanent bonding of their souls, a literal one that not even Death and subsequent reincarnation could break.

Sherlock gasps and his legs raise even higher. John gasps in sympathy to Sherlock, drags his hips upward, and calculates. He moves achingly slowly until the head of his penis is skimming Sherlock's prostate. Sherlock grips the pillows, his mouth is wide open and his back leaves the bed, his feet replacing them for steadiness.

John licks his nipples, biting them; his collarbone, biting it; his shoulders in turn, biting them. Pre-cum begins to leak and slide down Sherlock's curved, erect penis. John licks symbols Sherlock will never see but in the glitter saliva left on his stomach, and John will never understand where they come from or how he knew to draw them, what they would do. All he thought was _protection, my love, protection_.

D'enouement, d'enouement, d'enouement. Sherlock cums  as John aligns his penis with his prostate and cums against him, sucking on a nipple.

John can feel the wings he denies curling against Sherlock as they lay on their sides, carressing each other, and sigh.

'Oh, John, they're beautiful.' The most awed sound John has ever heard. Deny, deny, deny. The wings do not exist, do not pretend they're there.

 _Open your eyes, love. They're real._ John's eyes burst open. Sherlock should not be able to hear his thoughts or read his mind at will.

He should not be able to see the wings encasing him, but he does.

Sherlock is a constant caress on his face, the constant beating of his Heart. He is the music that runs through John's veins with the pattering of the rain outside, the whirring of a fan in the other room, the beating of his Heart.

_And you are my protection, my armour, my body, my Heart._

The d'enouement to the mystery of life: love.

_Never doubt I love you._

_Please._

_Don't look back._

They never looked back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next two parts change drastically in tone and meter. They don't sound as poetic and there is no real continuity. I apologize for this; they're all running along the same theory of Angel!John, Muse!Sherlock, Reaper!Mary and are connected by basic plot, but things shifted as I wrote. My apologies.


End file.
